Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create a kolam, an ephemeral ritual design made with rice flour, on the thresholds of homes, businesses and temples. This thousand-year-old ritual welcomes and honors Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and alertness, and Bhudevi, the goddess of the earth. Created by hand with great skill, artistry, and mathematical precision, the kolam disappears in a few hours, borne away by passing footsteps and hungry insects. This is the first comprehensive study of the kolam in the English language. It examines its significance in historical, mathematical, ecological, anthropological, and literary contexts. The culmination of Vijaya Nagarajan's many years of research and writing on this exacting ritual practice, Feeding a Thousand Souls celebrates the experiences, thoughts, and voices of the Tamil women who keep this tradition alive.

Since its inception over two hundred years ago, Swaminarayan Hinduism has flourished into a transnational movement described as one of the fastest growing Hindu groups in the world. Despite being one of the largest and most visible Hindu traditions both in India and the West, surprisingly little is known about what the Swaminarayan fellowship believes. An Introduction to Swaminarayan Hindu Theology provides a comprehensive doctrinal account of the Swaminarayan tradition's belief system, drawing on its rich corpus of theological literature, including the teachings of Swaminarayan himself and classical commentaries on canonical Vedantic texts. Part I delineates the sources and tools of Swaminarayan Hindu theology, while Part II systematically expounds upon its distinctive five eternal entities - Parabrahman, Aksarabrahman, maya, isvara and jiva - and mukti (spiritual liberation). In presenting these key themes theologically and lucidly, Swami Paramtattvadas makes the Swaminarayan Hindu belief system intelligible to scholars, students and serious readers.

Religion is the opium of the people, said Karl Marx many centuries ago. For more than a billion people living in India and abroad, Hinduism is the religion and a way of life. In this book Swami Achuthananda cracks open the opium poppy pods, analyzes the causes for euphoria, and comes away with a deeper understanding of the people and their religion. This is a comprehensive book on Hinduism. It tells you why Hindus do the things they do - and don't. Written in a casual style, the book guides you through the fundamentals of the religion. It then goes further and debunks a number of long-standing myths, some of them coming from the academia (of all places). While most books shy away from contentious issues, this book plunges headlong by taking on controversies, like the Aryan Invasion Theory, idol worship, RISA scholarship and many more. In fact one-third of the book is just on controversies that you rarely find in any other literature.

This is the first full-length study of the devotional poetry and poetics of the 14th-century poet-philosopher Vedantadesika, one of the most outstanding and influential figures in the hindu tradition of Sri-Vaishnavism (the cult of Lord Vishnu). Despite their intrinsic beauty and theological importance, the poetry and philosophy of Vedantadesika have received very little scholarly attention. However, for millions who belong to the Vaishnava tradition these poems are not just classical literature; they are committed to memory, recited, sung and enacted in ritual both in India and throughout the Hindu diaspora. Steven Hopkins here offers a comparative study of the Sanskrit, Pakrit and Tamil poems composed by Vedantadesika in praise of important Vaishnava shrines and their icons - poems that are considered to be the apogee of South Indian devotional literature.

Kabir was an extraordinary oral poet whose works have been sung and recited by millions throughout North India for half a millenium. He may have been illiterate--'I do not touch ink or paper, this hand has never grasped a pen'--and he preached an abrasive, sometimes shocking, always uncompromising message that exhorted his audience to shed their delusions, pretensions, and empty orthodoxies in favour of an intense, direct, and personal confrontation with the truth. Thousands of poems are popularly attributed to Kabir, but only a few written collections have survived over the centuries. The Bijak is one of the most important, and is the sacred book of those who follow Kabir.

The concluding volume of a critical English edition of the monumental Indian epic The seventh and final book of the monumental Ramayana of Valmiki, the Uttarakanda, brings the epic saga to a close with an account of the dramatic events of King Rama's millennia-long reign. It opens with a colorful history of the demonic race of the raksasas and the violent career of Rama's villainous foe Ravana, and later recounts Rama's grateful discharge of his allies in the great war at Lanka as well as his romantic reunion with his wife Sita. But dark clouds gather as Rama makes the agonizing decision to banish his beloved wife, now pregnant. As Rama continues as king, marvelous tales and events unfurl, illustrating the benefits of righteous rule and the perils that await monarchs who fail to address the needs of their subjects. The Uttarakanda has long served as a point of social and religious controversy largely for its accounts of the banishment of Sita, as well as of Rama's killing of a low-caste ascetic. This seventh volume in the critical edition and translation of the Valmiki Ramayana includes an extensive introduction and describes the complex reception history of the Uttarakanda, as well as exhaustive notes and a comprehensive bibliography.

Over a period of ten years, William Sax studied the inhabitants of the former kingdom of Garhwal, located in north India. These people are deeply devoted to the great Indian national epic, the Mahabharata. Sax attended and participated in dozens of performances of the pandav lila - a ritual reenactment of scenes from the Mahabharata in dance - and observed in context in village life. He also discovered and documented a bizarre and fascinating cult whose existence was only previously rumoured, which worships and exalts the villains of the epic and reviles the usual heroes. This book not only opens a window on a fascinating (and threatened) aspect of rural Indian life and Hinduism as a living religion, but provides an accessible introduction to the Mahabharata itself, including lively translations of many songs and poems based on the epic, and a prologue containing a concise and readable summary of the entire story.

Over a period of ten years, William Sax studied the inhabitants of the former kingdom of Garhwal, located in north India. These people are deeply devoted to the great Indian national epic, the Mahabharata. Sax attended and participated in dozens of performances of the pandav lila - a ritual reenactment of scenes from the Mahabharata in dance - and observed in context in village life. He also discovered and documented a bizarre and fascinating cult whose existence was only previously rumoured, which worships and exalts the villains of the epic and reviles the usual heroes. This book not only opens a window on a fascinating (and threatened) aspect of rural Indian life and Hinduism as a living religion, but provides an accessible introduction to the Mahabharata itself, including lively translations of many songs and poems based on the epic, and a prologue containing a concise and readable summary of the entire story.

Widely read, The Bhagavad Gita is a classic of world spirituality while The essential companion to The Bhagavad Gita, The Uddhava Gita has remained overlooked. This new accessible and only English translation in print of The Uddhava Gita offers a previously unexplored path to understanding Hinduism and Krishna s wisdom. Written centuries apart, the ideas of the two dialogues are similar although their approach and contexts differ. The Bhagavad Gita is filled with the urgency of battle while The Uddhava Gita takes place on the eve of Krishna s departure from the world. The Uddhava Gita offers the reader philosophy, sublime poetry, practical guidance, and, ultimately, hope for a more complete consciousness in which the life of the body better reflects the life of the spirit."

Dharma is a Sanskrit word that usually translates to religion, virtue, righteousness, or duty. It is a difficult word to translate because it actually means the essence of something, that which is eternally existing with an object, or that which sustains something. Dharma can apply to anything: water, fire, wind, etc. For example, heat and light represent the dharma of fire, for without heat and light, fire would have no existence. What is the dharma for the living entity? What is it that sustains us? What is it that eternally exists with us? The Vedas tell us that it is the occupational duty of the spirit soul to serve God.

Tukoba (Tukaram) was a seventeenth-century Bhakti Sant (saint-poet) of the Varkari movement in Maharashtra. He is still considered the best Marathi poet. These new translations by Gail Omvedt and Bharat Patankar seek to capture the wonder of his writing, his lyricism and his profound meanings.

2012 Reprint of 1928 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Vivekananda was an important Indian teacher who came to this country just over a century ago and taught Hindu meditation practice and religious philosophy. Raja Yoga means the "discipline of meditation practice," as opposed to Hatha Yoga, which means the "discipline of physical stretching exercises." Raja Yoga is one of the most well-known books by Vivekananda, who also wrote books on Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga. According to the author, the goal of Raja Yoga is to concentrate the mind and to discover the innermost recesses of our own mind. In order to obtain the goal, practice is absolutely necessary. The appendix contains the translation of the Patanjali Yoga Aphorisms.

This vibrant collection presents 145 brief Bengali lyric poems dedicated to the Hindu goddesses Kali and Uma. These poems - many of which are presented here for the first time in English translation - were written from the early eighteenth century up to the contemporary period. They represent the unique Bengali tradition of goddess worship (Saktism) as it developed over this period. McDermott's lucid introduction places these works in their historical context and shows how images of the goddesses evolved over the centuries. Her lively translations of these poetic lyrics evoke the passion and devotion of the followers of Kali and Uma and shed light on the history and practice of goddess worship.

This study, based on the author's fieldwork among rural Tamil villagers in South India, focuses on the ways in which people in this society interact with the supernatural beings who play such a large role in their personal and corporate lives. Isabelle Navokov looks at a spectrum of ritualized contexts in which the boundaries between the natural and spiritual worls are penetrated and communication takes place. Throughout, Nabokov's meticulous analysis sheds new light on this hiterto almost unkown domain - and entire range of fascinating phenomena basic to South Indian religion as it is really lived.

This book offers a close-up view of the religious world of one of the most influential families in Vrinbadan, India's premier place of pilgrimage for worshipers of Krishna. This priestly family has arguably been the most creative force in this important town. Their influence also radiates well beyond India's borders both because of their tireless work in fostering scholarship and performance about Krishna and because the scion of the family, Shrivatsa Goswami, has become an international spokesman for Hindu ways and concerns. Case, who has been an occasional resident in the family ashram, gives the reader a real sense of the atmosphere of daily life there, and the complete devotion of the residents to the service and worship of Krishna.

2012 Reprint of 1913 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Tantra" is the name scholars give to a style of religious ritual and meditation that arose in medieval India no later than the fifth century, and which came to influence all forms of Asian religious expression to a greater or lesser degree. Strictly speaking, this usage of the word "tantra" is a scholarly invention, but it is justifiable on the basis of the fact that the scriptures that present these practices are generally known as "tantras," regardless of which religion they belong to. The historical significance of the Tantric method lies in the fact that it impacted every major Asian religion extant in the early medieval period (c. 500 - 1200 CE): thus Shaivism, Buddhism, Vaishnavism, and Jainism all developed a well-documented body of Tantric practices and related doctrines. Its influence spread far outside of India, into Tibet, Nepal, China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Today, it is Tibetan Buddhism and various forms of Hinduism that show the strongest Tantric influence, as well as the international postural yoga movement and most forms of American alternative spirituality grouped under the New Age rubric. Defined primarily as a technique-rich style of spiritual practice, Tantra has no single coherent doctrine; rather, it developed different teachings in connection with the different religions that adopted the Tantric method. These teachings tended to support and validate the practices of Tantra, which in their classical form are more oriented to the married householder than the monastic or solitary renunciant, and thus exhibited what may be called a world-embracing rather than a world-denying character. Thus Tantra, especially in its nondual forms, rejected the renunciant values of Patanjalian yoga, offering instead a vision of the whole of reality as the self-expression of a single, free and blissful Divine Consciousness under whatever name, whether iva or Buddha-nature. Since the world was viewed as real, not illusory, this doctrine was a significant innovation over and against previous Indian philosophies, which tended to picture the Divine as absolutely transcendent and/or the world as illusion. The practical consequence of this view was that not only could householders aspire to spiritual liberation in the Tantric system, they were the type of practitioner that most Tantric manuals had in mind. Furthermore, since Tantra dissolved the dichotomy of spiritual versus mundane, practitioners could entail every aspect of their daily lives into their spiritual growth process, seeking to realize the transcendent in the immanent. Though the vast majority of scriptural Tantric teachings are not concerned with sexuality, in the popular imagination the term tantra and the notion of superlative sex are indelibly linked. This error probably arose from the fact that some of the more radical nondual schools taught a form of sexual ritual as a way of entering into intensified and expanded states of awareness and dissolving mind-created boundaries.

This is an english translation of the treatise on Shrimat Bhagvat Geeta written in Marathi by Sant Dnyaneshwar in thirteenth century. It gives core ideology of hinduism. It brought for the first time religious knowledge from sanskrit into local language Marathi for common man. Sant Dnyanseshwar wrote it as poetry written in Owi format. It deals with self-realization and meditation.

A Divine Soul who came to the earth as a Human Being, lived as a Karmyogi, spoke as a Prophet, taught like Jesus, served as Buddha, and left this world as Sai Baba - The God of Millions! He had said, "When I will no more be in the body, my bones will speak to you from the Mahasamadhi, whenever you call me with love and faith". Sai Baba still keeps His promise. You will hear Him speak to you within; you will find Him always beside you, extending His hand to you for your help; and believe me, you will never find yourself alone at times of crises. Sai Baba is a God who is practically yours - always - if you have faith in Him.

This edited volume programmatically reconsiders the creative contribution of the littoral and insular regions of Maritime Asia to shaping new paradigms in the Buddhist and Hindu art and architecture of the mediaeval Asian world. Far from being a mere southern conduit for the maritime circulation of Indic religions, in the period from ca. the 7th to the 14th century those regions transformed across mainland and island polities the rituals, icons, and architecture that embodied these religious insights with a dynamism that often eclipsed the established cultural centres in Northern India, Central Asia, and mainland China. This collective body of work brings together new research aiming to recalibrate the importance of these innovations in art and architecture, thereby highlighting the cultural creativity of the monsoon-influenced Southern rim of the Asian landmass.

Hindu apologists routinely support their interpretations of the Hindu world view with an almost promiscuous use of the world's many philosophies and religions. This book examines the classical roots and contemporary significance of this eclecticism within modern Hindu discourse. Brian Hatcher begins by focusing on the thought of Swami Vivekananda as exemplary of the tone and character of modern Hindu eclecticism. Hatcher then identifies the ancient antecedents of this eclecticism in the sacrificial ritualism of the Vedas. Returning to the modern period, he focuses on 19th-century Bengal, introducing the reader to a wide range of modern Indian eclecticisms. In conclusion, Hatcher proposes a pragmatic approach to evaluating the validity of eclectic knowledge.

"Barefoot in the Heart" is a collection of transcribed oral stories of the Indian saint Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaji). It includes many anecdotes and first-person retellings of stories collected in India and the in the USA over a period of 9 years, by Keshav Das, including a small selection of unpublished stories originally intended for inclusion in "Miracle Of Love" by Ram Dass. "Barefoot In The Heart" is a divine raft to take us across the ocean of darkness to the glorious land of light. Every page is filled with Maharajji's nectar..... Profound gratitude to Keshav Das and his collaborators.... - Jai Uttal

Hagiography, the saint's life, is one of the most popular genres of religious literature in India. For this study, Robin Rinehart has delved into the multiple written and oral accounts of the life of Swami Rama Tirtha (1873-1906). While the earliest accounts of his life portray him as a deeply spiritual man and compelling religious leader, the most recent accounts make far more sweeping claims about him as an avatar and as the primary force behind India's achievement of independence from the British in 1947. Through analysis of the rhetorical strategies of those who have written about his life (his hagiographers), Rinehart shows that descriptions of the experience of being in Swami Rama Tirtha's presence are a central feature of these accounts. The differences between the experiences of close disciples of the Swami and those of followers of a later period help account for the radical changes in the portrayal of the Swami in the hagiographical tradition. Focusing on the role of the hagiographer as mediator between the saint and the saint's followers, Rinehart highlights the role of hagiographers in shaping these followers' communities.